One thing which much astonishes me is that, in the hypothesis that actual crop circles are the work of hoaxers, there are no mistakes.

I explain: it is very difficult to move precisely into a field (by night and even by day) where we have no visual landmarks. At best we could have an accuracy of 10m. We could do simple figures with means such as ropes, etc. but most crop circles today are very complex, understand they contains tens of circles and straight lines, and are very accurate (in the 0.1m range), and never featuring mistakes or blunders, while still "appearing" in a short time. To achieve such a precision and complete absence of errors in complex figures would require that the hoaxers use some sophisticated electronic mean, with a military organisation.

What Bob shaw suggests:

QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Aug 26 2005, 11:40 PM)

Hmmm...

..I smell Photoshop!

is that the link provided by helvick would be a painting whe could obtain with Photoshop. In this case really it looks like that, but are all the images published in "pro-circle" reviews and sites fabricated with graphic softwares? It seems unlikely, as many are perspective views, with people, etc, and even "con-circle" people found them in real fields.

Yes. You could replicate it on a piece of paper with a compass - you can replicated in a field with rope.

I'm going to give you a bit of a warning here - you're beginning to step into the anomalistic / kook regieme. I've only recently removed someones account for this - and I dont want to have to do it again. This is unmannedspaceflight.com - not cropcircles.com - please respect that.

I have been watching the dicussion for a while without comment. I agree with Doug, it does not belong here. It is a insult to science and has the potential to cause a lot of harm.

There are a lot of gullible people in the world, they can"t help it, and this type of thing takes advantage of their gullability. To me making crop circle or wasting time on other hoaxes just means that scientists energy is diverted from real work to wasting time answering stupid media question. Hoaxes are a disservice to science, they are anti-science and bring no credit to anyone that particpates in them.

It bad enough to walk into your local newsagent and to look for the most recent copies of my favorite astronomy and science mags only to finding the science section packed with "New Age" and "Astrology" trash.

As for UFO's visiting Earth, whenever some poor guillible fool that has seen too many crop circles tries to persuade me with his half-backed conspiracy crap or the latest fruit-loop case that has been kidnapped and had weird sexual experiments performed on them, I simply ask them this question.

If these Aliens come from such a superior and advanced society that is able to travel the vast distance between the stars at will.................

When they come to Earth, no doubt after many lonely years in space,....

I think we're probably all agreed that the whole UFO/Astrology/Crop Circle thing is, indeed, sheer guff (well, I *hope* we are, anyway!) but discussion of such matters is of interest insofar as it relates to the public perception of reality. The mainstream media are - frankly - counter-informative most of the time, and feed the masses with unreality almost by default. It behoves us as rational (but see below) and well-informed beings to at least be aware of current fads and fancies, if only in terms of the sociology. So long as we're clear about why we are discussing certain things, there's no harm done.

Or maybe 'sociopathy'...

Human beings are *not* rational - but they do rationalise and seek out patterns in the world, and if we are to persuade our fellows that a world-view based on science is the way forward then we must attempt to understand the processes that militate against science, ranging from the naive 'I want to believe' right through to the organised counter-science movements which are out there.

So long as we're clear about why we are discussing certain things, there's no harm done.

True Bob as long as it is a discussion amoung educated people. I was ckecking the local news just now and like a prophecy, an example of the kind of nonsense that the mischievous perpetrate on the gullible.

The real problem lies in the fact that when intelligent people discuss such pseudo-scientific claptrap, it's usually with an eye towards how to take advantage of the situation, or how to copy the techniques in order to hoodwink the public over more prosaic matters. And thus, harm *can* be done.

However, since none of us seem to fall into either category (the easily duped, or those who are desperate to dupe others), the discussion in this forum really does do no harm.

-the other Doug

--------------------

“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain

The real problem lies in the fact that when intelligent people discuss such pseudo-scientific claptrap, it's usually with an eye towards how to take advantage of the situation, or how to copy the techniques in order to hoodwink the public over more prosaic matters. And thus, harm *can* be done.

However, since none of us seem to fall into either category (the easily duped, or those who are desperate to dupe others), the discussion in this forum really does do no harm.

-the other Doug

other Doug:

If you want, I'll tell you my s c 1 e n t 0 1 0 g y story (spread out and buggered up so that Mr Google can't make a hit!).

In summary: a person of that persuasion ran away, after an innocent (but almost well-informed) comment from a young lady who thought she'd met Mr H...

You wouldn't need Photoshop to make ogham "crop circles". As a matter of fact it would seem to be the ideal cropcirclish alphabet, consisting exclusively of short straight lines crossing a long straight line. Also it has nice myftic celtic associations.

You wouldn't need Photoshop to make ogham "crop circles". As a matter of fact it would seem to be the ideal cropcirclish alphabet, consisting exclusively of short straight lines crossing a long straight line. Also it has nice myftic celtic associations.

tty

I'm surprised that I haven't encounted an ogham font for windows. Had a lot of fun with ogham back in high school ... once turned-in a paper to a science teacher which confused the heck out of her

No cant agree abalone, this is discussed in the CCC subsection, it was interesting to read first hand accounts of people who actually made crop circles.

Have found two myself, one when I was a child and one other in my early twenties, together with a friend of mine we did reach the conclusion that it was natural, and it was just a plain circle and were we thought a whirlwind had been involved.Now when farmers use chemicals to shorten the straws, such should be very rare perhaps not found at all.As for any connection in all this with UFO's or whatever, I haven't even considered the possibilty. I came up with my own (lengty and less elegant version) of Fermi's Paradox long ago.

As for a current hoax the 'Mars Spectacular' chainletter have resurfaced. Stating that on august 27 Mars will appear "as large as the full Moon to the naked eye."

We all here would fall over backwards over the thught that anyone believes that, yet its spread so the astronomical knowledge among many are sad indeed.

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